


From the Desk of Mistress J., Scarlet Room, Golden Cat

by akfedeau



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Diary/Journal, F/M, Other, Sex Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-07-16 02:57:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7249240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akfedeau/pseuds/akfedeau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Almost every famous man in Dunwall has behaved badly at the Golden Cat, and unbeknownst to them, someone has been putting them in her little black book. Whether it’s heresy, adultery, or kinks that would get them thrown out of Parliament, the courtesan Joanna has written vignettes on some of Dunwall’s biggest names - sharing her laughs, her grievances, and why they should seriously stop asking to roleplay with Lady Boyle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From the Desk of Mistress J., Scarlet Room, Golden Cat

**Thaddeus Campbell, 3 Month of Seeds**

> I will say right now that I hate Overseers on principle and the only thing I hate more than Overseers are Overseers who come to the Cat, and out of all my hate for Overseers, I hate Thaddeus Campbell the most. I’ve heard gossip from the other villains who work down at Holger Square that he has this private joke about breaking all seven Strictures every day, and from what I’ve seen of his outrageous business here, I’d believe it. He’s brought in confiscated runes and had girls do indecent things with them. Once he drenched Beatrice in champagne and spent the evening licking it off. This time I’ve got evidence of a girl to sit on his face, and a girl on the other end, kissing, in Overseer uniforms. I mean, who needs all that? Really? It’s screwing. It’s not that complex.
> 
> Prudence loves him because he spends so much, and because she makes an extra 300 coin off him for every silence bribe. He loves her because she inflates his ego. We’re never going to get rid of him.

**Anton Sokolov, 15 Month of Seeds**

> I can’t even remember how long the “great” Anton Sokolov has been coming here. He’s as old as some of the furniture, and he may even have been here before Prudence, too. It’s funny how artists think they’re really bohemian and unpredictable, because Anton’s a complete creature of habit. You just can’t point it out to him. Every time he comes in he gets four or five girls together - he’s the Royal Physician, at least he can pay for it - and loosens them up with a little wine and has them moisturize his beard, and they talk about ideas before he lets one of them stroke him off. It’s like a salon, but with more nude people. Well, or maybe less, I don’t know. I’ve never been to an art salon. I don’t know what they get up to in there.
> 
> Oh, no, wait, I forgot. He’s not a complete bore. Sometimes he asks for some Tyvian thing that the girls have never heard of and can’t pronounce. All he’ll say is it involves a grapefruit. We’re not giving him that.
> 
> **Update, 28 Month of Nets:** Anton snuck upstairs this morning to solicit me at my door, and said he wanted to reenact a scene from “Portrait of Madame Kseniya.” It’s a Tyvian play about a painter and the rich widow who sponsors him, and how he has a creative renaissance after she “teaches him lessons in pleasure and pain.” Well, well. Looks like he’s decided to see if art is suffering after all.

**Morgan Pendleton, 7 Month of Nets**

> It’s after lunch and Parliament has just gotten out, so sure enough, Morgan Pendleton is back to have a sulk in the Steam Room. Every time he gets outvoted he does it. I don’t even have to read the bulletins anymore. I just check to see whether Morgan’s down there getting a hand massage, and I know things have swayed in the left-wing favor again. It’s hilarious.
> 
> Loulia says she doesn’t mind him as much as the other two. She tells me all you have to do with Morgan is get him talking about politics, and he can take up three-fourths of the hour just trying to show he knows more than you. Suits her and she makes money, I suppose. I couldn’t do it, that’s for sure. I could strap him down to the headboard and yell at him about what a fool he is, except I don’t think he could handle it. He’d want me to shut up and get down to business. Speaking of which, Loulia’s got to get him out of the pool next time. She’s going to get an infection if she keeps letting him do that.

**Custis Pendleton, 8 Month of Nets**

> You know how some people are so twisted that you feel like a better person just for being around them? That’s Custis Pendleton. And I do mean Custis, not Morgan. I can tell them apart. Their bodyguards joke about how they can’t. It’s not that difficult. Come on. Those guards have seen them with their trousers off. One points left, one points right.
> 
> I’ve never worked with Custis, personally. I’m not what he’s looking for. The man has the mind of a true sadist and he’s not afraid to use it, and there’s nothing he won’t do to slake his thirst for women suffering at his hands. I’ve seen suspender welts. Rope burns. Someone nearly blacked out from his choking once. I don’t give a damn if I’m a hypocrite, it’s different when a man does it to a woman. Really says something about him that having all that power outside the bedroom isn’t enough.
> 
> And that sick streak goes deeper, I know it. Deeper than he lets on. He seems like he’d be the type to want to play with degradation fantasies or blood, and Prudence would sooner drop dead than get between him and what he wants. Violetta would, too. She’s so submissive. Doesn’t question anything. It must be why Custis keeps asking for her. I just hope she gets through all right.

**Treavor Pendleton, 10 Month of Nets**

> Saw the third Pendleton brother milling around this afternoon, somewhere between the parlor and the steps to the Steam Room. I’m used to the twins stinking up the place. Not so much this one. When he shows up he seems to like Beatrice, and he seems to spend a long time with her, but she says it’s like pulling teeth to get him to actually do anything. All he wants is to drink us out of whiskey and complain about Waverly Boyle. This afternoon she’d taken her camisole off and said that was a specialty of the house, and he still wasn’t having it. He just put his face in her chest and cried.
> 
> I don’t know what I expected. Custis, I guess? I’m not sure what’s wrong with this one. Overpowered by his brothers, maybe, or maybe his mother hated him. Why do all these nobles think they can come around and take that out on us? If they don’t want to parent properly, they shouldn’t have children at all. Oh, but they need to “produce an heir,” don’t they? Remind me not to marry rich.

**Bundry Rothwild, 22 Month of Nets**

> Prudence got a noise complaint from Montgomery tonight. Said it sounded like someone was trying to break the furniture in the Ivory Room. Prudence said it was a bath house and there was bound to be a little noise, but once we opened the door and saw it was Bundry Rothwild, we understood. Not that I like Montgomery, but I don’t blame him. The man screws like a Morley hog. Whenever I can get my hands on the guestbook I put the clients I don’t like near him, so they have to put up with his barnyard noises and bouncing off the walls. Some of the girls have to take the evening off after Bundry’s through with them, and even the ones who can take him complain that he leaves huge handprints on their backsides. I was about to say “What I wouldn’t give to teach him a lesson,” but… that would involve touching him. Never mind.

**Teague Martin, 11 Month of Rain**

> I haven’t thought it was noteworthy enough to write about until now, but for the past few months I’ve noticed a mysterious guest around the Cat. He’s an Overseer, high-ranking, but he doesn’t wear a mask - he answers to the name “Teague Martin,” and he gets something different every time. Different girls. Different services. Like he wants to try everything once. And, again, you’d wouldn’t think that it’d be anything special, but the regulars here are so entrenched in their tastes, you notice something like that. First it was Portia to suck him off. Simple. Then it was Betty in the Silver Room. They were playing Tyvian spies, or something. Betty said it was more my kind of work. Now Genevieve tells me that he spent tonight talking about his “silver tongue,” and after an hour or so she was getting dreadfully bored of it, until he stuck his head between her legs and made a pig of himself. A pig of himself! For nothing in return. He must be that rare bird that gets his kicks from seeing what he does to people, instead of what other people do to him.
> 
> Normally I’d welcome an Overseer about as much as a plague rat, but… there’s something interesting about this one. I’ll have to keep an eye on him.
> 
> **Update, 1 Month of Earth:** Teague came up to the Scarlet Room on the second night of Fugue Feast, roaring drunk with a feathered Overseer mask on his face. We didn’t do anything. I don’t know if the liquor would’ve let him anyway. Good talking to him about his old bedroom adventures. I hope he’ll come around again.

**Mr. Bunting, 26 Month of Rain**

> You know, there are the clients you hate, and there are the clients that you just get bored with. The story goes that one time Bunting went to a brothel in Serkonos, and they played out an interrogation scene on him, with this experimental shock device. He must have had some kind of transcendental experience, because he donated a ludicrous sum to us when he found out we had one, and now he’s here every week for it. Stick him in and shock him ‘til he’s done. Apart from that, he’s not vicious or memorably bizarre. He’s just… there.
> 
> Maybe I’m tired of him because he overstays his emotional welcome. See, the other thing about Bunting is that he likes to give us gifts, as if we’re artists and he’s trying to be our patron, I guess. It would be sweet and I’d be grateful, except he doesn’t know our taste, and I don’t get the impression he’s interested in finding out. I’ve got a trunk overflowing with pink feathery corsets from Drapers Ward and Pandyssian-rhinestone shoes that I don’t know what to do with, and I suspect up in the dormitory Betty’s got the same.
> 
> Sidenote: Does anyone here know his first name? Does anyone in Dunwall?

**Edgar Wakefield, 6 Month of Wind**

> Every now and then the girls hear from some shipping baron that pirates have made off with one of his boats, and like clockwork, within 24 hours, we get a band of Dead Eels at our door. They’re always in the company of an Edgar Wakefield, and if I never have to see him again, it’ll be too soon. Don’t get me wrong, the Cat gets plenty of criminals, and on the whole they’re actually good about paying courtesans. But Edgar is the biggest cheat this side of the Wrenhaven, to the point where I wonder whether that’s the itch he’s here to scratch. I’m not kidding, he went to Genevieve for a routine visit once, and after he’d left she discovered he’d left her a pile of chocolate coins. How stupid does he think we are?! They didn’t even taste good.
> 
> Not paying is one of the few things that gets Prudence’s hackles up, so I’m surprised she hasn’t tried harder to do something about it. Besides, why are you stealing all that money if you’re not going to spend it? I swear, I just don’t understand some people.
> 
> **Update, 25 Month of High Cold:** I don’t know what happened, but since the last time I wrote about him, Edgar’s brought his little clown troupe in three times and paid in solid gold. Maybe Prudence finally gave him a piece of her mind. Or maybe it’s blood money. I think I’m content not to know.

**Montgomery Shaw, 17 Month of Wind**

> Men like Montgomery Shaw put it firmly in my mind that Dunwall should do something about the stigma we’ve put on divorce. Or our definition of masculinity, maybe. I’m not sure what made a mess like him. What I am sure of is that he needs to do something about the way he thinks of his wife, and stop dealing with it by bringing these perverse little roleplays to us. One girl sits in the room and plays the part of Mrs. Shaw, while he takes another on the bed and forces her to watch. So he can “prove his manhood to her.” I wish he wouldn’t put it like that. Clients aren’t supposed to tell us if they’re married or not, so we have plausible deniability if a poor betrayed wife comes around. I know the nobles are all over the bulletins and it’s impossible to stay too ignorant, but it’s the principle of the thing. A principle mainly in place for people like him.
> 
> He must be small. I think I remember Violetta telling me he was small. You tell yourself it’s a stereotype that a tiny prick makes men behave like that, and then they go and keep proving it right. What’s a girl to do.

**Timothy Brisby, 5 Month of Darkness**

> Bad news from Prudence. I hear Lord Brisby’s made an appointment for later tonight. Time to dust off the old white suit and hat in the trunk upstairs, and maybe give Violetta a pep talk and a hot drink. Usually even if there’s a client I complain about, I can find someone on the lower floor who isn’t as bothered by him. But there are a few who send chills down pretty much everyone’s spine, and Lord Brisby - and his Waverly Boyle obsession - is one. It’s not like we’ve never had a client with a taste for one of the Boyles before. Outsider’s eyes, the Pendletons do it all the time. It’s just… the intensity. He’s like a drunk with whiskey. It’s all he ever wants.
> 
> Honestly, I’m starting to think about whether we should let him come back. Well, Prudence always will, but whether I should start kicking him out. Last week he asked if any of the girls were heavy with child, and if we could dress her up as Lady Boyle instead of Violetta that time. When I said no, he asked if we could get one in her fertile time of the month, so he could imagine he was… euuugh. All right. I’ve made up my mind.

**Jack Ramsey, 16 Month of High Cold**

> Jackie, Jackie. What a magnificent twit. He may not be interesting and he’s only handsome if you squint, but he’s the perfect client: No body fluids, and he keeps me in coin up to my ears. Because he keeps misbehaving, you see. That’s the way it works. The matriarch of the Ramsey family didn’t spare the rod and it bestowed upon the young Jack a condition about these things, so every time he gambles too much, he has to come and get the rod from me. You get a lot of little quirks out of the nobility like that. Now, I won’t let him call me “mother,” because it makes my blood run cold. But if he wants to pull his trousers down for half an hour and have me wail on his backside until he staggers out the VIP door, then may all the good of the Everyman be with him. Or the Outsider. Whatever.
> 
> Maybe I should start asking around the other blueblooded regulars to see if any of them had mothers who were spendthrifts. I’ve been in this business for over a decade now, and it still surprises me how well some men respond to “you’re a bad boy, but you might be better if you bought me this pair of drawers.”

**Piero Joplin, 12 Month of Ice**

> Ugh.
> 
> Remember how I mentioned that there are a few clients who basically no one likes dealing with? Piero’s another one. In a business full of tedious men, he’s tedious, and I mean both inventors and men who come to the Cat. He designed a couple of the erotic devices we use around the place and he thinks that entitles him to come over all the time, pushing up his little round glasses and mouth-breathing at the girls. I’ve let the newer ones know that he’s not actually a paying customer and so far they’ve been smart enough to not let him into any of the private rooms… I just wish he’d find something better to do with himself. “I’ll show you how they work,” he says. “I think you’ll find I’m an excellent teacher.” We’re courtesans, Piero. We know how they work better than you do. Go away.
> 
> You know what I wonder is why he’s never just asked if Anton’s around. Piero could leave us alone. Anton could stop with the nude salons. I mean, with so much hate for each other, you’d think they’d turn it into passion sometime.

**Arnold Timsh, 18 Month of Ice**

> Here’s a question: What do you get when you cross a lot of money with arrogance and a drooling infatuation with housemaids? Barrister Timsh. What happens when you give him a courtesan in a frilly apron? Well, you can connect the dots. Arnold is another one of those clients whose tastes wouldn’t be so bad, except the way he goes about them leaves a vile taste in your mouth - it’s always about power, and authority, and how the maids have to do whatever he wants. At the end of the day it’s no different from Custis, or Montgomery with his wife. He’s overcompensating, and he thinks women are too stupid to not recognize it. I still maintain that one of these days he’s going to crack and ask one of those courtesan-maids to yell at him, but he’s never come up to ask me for it, so I could be wrong. I’m not, usually, not about these things. But I could be.
> 
> He’s very keen on breasts for some reason. They’re his, err, method of choice. I’ve heard a rumor that when Arnold was young he put a scullery maid in the family way, and he’s avoided anything south of a woman’s girdle ever since. Should’ve used a bone charm, Arnold. We know you don’t have a problem with Outsider worship.

**Scott Blossom, 27 Month of Hearths**

> Most of the time when Arnold shows up he brings his head of security, though I guess they’re more than that, because I’ve heard them talking about their hunting trips. I know which one I’d rather work with, and let me tell you, it’s not the bastard that hired him. Scott’s a harmless man with harmless proclivities. Embarrassed about them, even. Arnold brought him around for the first time, oh, maybe five, six years ago, and he asked me whether I was willing to do something “despicable.” I said “all right,” thinking he wanted to… I didn’t even know, but after an hour of hemming and hawing, he said he wanted to stroke my feet. That was it. The great, despicable passion. He just really loves feet. Betty handles him now, but when we hear he’s coming, we have a good time getting ready for him. I give her some oil to rub down her legs and ankles. She paints her nails. He’s even a generous tipper. Easiest money she makes all week.

**Geoff Curnow, 13 Month of Harvest**

> Betty and I have this joke between each other that Captain Curnow is the vigilant uncle the Cat never knew it needed to have. Or the janitor. It’s all in what you think of the City Watch. First he came to ask after Sergeant Heyburn, when he hadn’t shown up to shift that morning, and ended up pulling Heyburn ear-first out of the Steam Room before he could even get his clothes. Then it was Dunstan, when we got to closing time and he was still passed out drunk, and Curnow carried him like a mother cat all the way back to Clavering Boulevard. There are so many guards and officers that behave badly in here that they start to run together in your head after a while, but somehow Geoff always knows they’re here, and comes to save the day.
> 
> The funny thing is I don’t think he’s never propositioned one of us. He’s been here so often we know him on a first-name basis like our clients, and all he’s ever done is apologize and haul his subordinates out. I’d say he’s married, but it’s not like that’s ever stopped a man before. Maybe he’s just not interested in women. He wouldn’t be the only one.

**Farley Havelock, 23 Month of Timber**

> Well, I think I had an awkward go of things tonight. A navy man came in after dinner and gave his name as Admiral Havelock, and Prudence sent him straight up to me. Said he was very important. It wasn’t that he was a mean man or asked for anything untenable, it’s just… I guess at least I earned a medal for effort. I flirted with him. I held his hands. I offered him a bath. I even rubbed circles on his stomach while I whispered dirty things in his ear, and that’ll get just about any man going, unless he’s really old. No luck. He had a couple of whiskeys and told some stories about the battles he’d been in. Good stories, sure, but we both knew it wasn’t going anywhere. He gave me a tip for my trouble and grumbled that he was sorry on his way out.
> 
> When I think about it I’m not sure the Cat had anything to offer him. I hope he finds what he’s looking for. Greener pastures. Manlier ones.

**Daud, 19 Month of Songs**

> _[Joanna has drawn a long, diagonal swipe of thick, black ink, across a space of five or six lines on the page below his name. Whatever she may have had to write about him, no one will ever know.]_


End file.
